It is shocking that 1.2 billion people in Africa (that means 1.2 billion women) do not have access to clean cooking solutions. They rely on biomass, fuel wood and charcoal to cook. These hard-working women, who cook for their families, and their girls, spend several hours looking for and collecting fuel wood and charcoal. With bent backs, they carry loads of fuel wood and charcoal and walk several kilometers just to be able to cook a decent meal for their families.

How can this be? Why must we allow such to happen?

Africa loses over 600,000 women and children annually from the effects of secondary smoke from partial combustion of biomass, fuel wood and charcoal. That means we will lose 6 million women and children in ten years.

It is estimated that globally, the health cost alone from impaired health is in the order of $1.4 trillion annually, with over half of ($700 billion annually) being in Africa.

How can this be? Why must we allow this to happen?

Access to clean cooking is more than cooking. It is about human dignity, fairness, justice, and equity for women. It is more than the lighting of the stoves; it is about life.

The imperative of clean cooking is clear and overwhelming for the environment and climate change.

Access to clean cooking will save at least 200 million hectares of forests globally, with 110 million being in Africa, by 2030.

Universal access to clean cooking will reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally by 1.9 gigatons of C02-equivalent, which is equal to all the emissions from airplanes and ships today.

Providing universal access to clean cooking is right, fair, just, and the responsible thing to do.

The solutions for clean cooking are well known, from liquified petroleum gas (LPGs), natural gas for use for electricity to allow for electric stoves or e-cooking, use of ethanol and biogas. We know of so called improved clean cooking stoves, but they simply give efficiency in use of heat for cooking but still rely on fuelwood, charcoal, or biomass.

Let’s be clear: there is nothing improved in continued suffering. No woman in Africa should have to cook again with fuelwood, charcoal, and biomass.

I wish to highly commend H.E. President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania for establishing a national program to solve this challenge in Tanzania, and in other parts of Africa, with the African Women Clean Cooking Support Program, which she launched at COP28.

It is time to restore dignity to women to cook like in developed countries.

The International Energy Agency has estimated that it will cost only $4 billion per year in Africa to achieve universal access to clean cooking.

African governments must play their leadership role. Governments must allocate at least 5% of the current total $80 billion spent on energy investments annually into the provision of clean cooking solutions, that will provide close to the $4 billion needed annually.

The African Development Bank will play a major part in this collective effort and will now allocate 20% of all its financing for energy in Africa to clean cooking.

I am therefore pleased to announce that the African Development Bank will commit $2 billion to clean cooking over the next ten years.

We will work with governments to develop and roll out clean cooking solutions at scale, along with supportive policy, standards, safety, and regulations, as well as fiscal incentives to improve access and affordability.

We cannot solve the global clean cooking challenge unless we solve it first in Africa.

I wish to therefore thank H.E. President Samia Suluhu Hassan, for her call for a $12 billion facility to be set aside for the 17^th replenishment of the African Development Fund, to drive universal access to clean cooking for women across Africa.

The African Development Bank stands ready to work with countries, the IEA, the African Clean Cooking Consortium, and partners to mobilize the resources to tackle this challenge and get done it—once and for all.

Let us from today create a spark, and trigger a movement, to assure 100% access to clean cooking for women in Africa.

By Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina

President, African Development Bank Group